


Six

by jamlockk



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Season/Series 03 Fix-It, Told in Snapshots, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamlockk/pseuds/jamlockk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six snapshots of time in the lives of John and Sherlock, beginning in Magnussen's penthouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Six

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know on this one guys. This is probably style over substance but there we are. This is totally unbeta'd so any typos, errors and/or general shit-ness is entirely my own.

_Seconds_

Human error. That’s what I told John. Just a few minutes ago, in fact. That’s what I tell myself now, as the figure holding the gun turns to face me. Human error. I am fallible after all. 

It’s not that I believed I’d never make a mistake. Even I’m not that arrogant. But I do miss things. Sometimes. Occasionally. And this was so very well hidden. And I didn’t want to look. Or, I didn’t want to look too deeply. The decision had been made already, maybe months before, maybe minutes before, who knows (or cares). I realise now just how wrong I’ve been all this time, how badly I’ve misjudged this, how well played the game has been. How much I’ve lost. 

Mycroft tried to tell me, in his way. Bloody Mycroft. Of course he knew, he’d seen, could see. He was always good at reading these things. I struggled. He made sure I was painfully aware, in my youth. Still does. I have improved but I still slip up every now and then. Before, I had John to keep me right. Now? Things are different. As Mycroft once said, am I really so obvious? Appears that I am. 

The restaurant should have been my first clue. Should have been. At the time I was too focused on getting back to John, to seeing his face again, there in front of me, right there, instead of in my mind’s eye. Hearing his voice again, his fond admonishments, his grumpy cursing, his laugh. God, his laugh. The sound of his laugh echoing in my ears had been all that I had, once upon a time. And now I was coming back, I would make him laugh again. Laugh at me, if you want John, I don’t care. Part of me still doesn’t, if it means he is with me. Just the two of us, against the rest of the world.

But it wasn’t to be. I tried, and I failed. I failed miserably, I got it all wrong. He was so angry, I anticipated that. I didn’t anticipate much else though. And then, it was all I could do not to push. Not to make it worse. Not to give him any (more) reasons to shut me out. I would take what little of him he could give me and be content. I promised myself. I promised them (him). And now look where we are. 

The figure, dressed all in black, turns, and the gun is pointing right at me. At my chest. At my heart. (No, that’s wrong. Well, technically it’s right. But my heart hasn’t been mine for a long time.) And I see a face I have grown to love, a face I know John loves, looking back at me coldly. A face I have to have grown to love, because it’s a face John loves. Everything is grinding to a halt and racing to full speed all at once. 

Is John here, she asks. I fumble at first but I confirm. I regain my confidence. I can help, whatever is happening here, I can help, and I will. I will do anything and everything in my power because I have to, I have to make sure that everything that came before was not purposeless. That there still is a point. 

I try to ignore the odious man on the floor and concentrate on her. I am sure, and I move to step towards her. Human error. 

It strikes me just as the bullet does, that it has only taken six seconds for everything to fall apart.

 _Minutes_

The average response time of a London ambulance is eight minutes. Feels a lot longer when you’ve ripped stitches out of a bullet wound in the centre of your chest, you’re bleeding internally and you’re gripping for dear life onto your best friend’s arm, begging him without voice. Begging him to do what exactly? At that moment I’m not sure even I was precisely sure. But it worked. Mostly. 

I have a plan, or rather, I had a plan. Simple really; lure in the shark, remove its teeth, let the family go live in peace. It’s Christmas, after all. Time of cheer and goodwill to all men. Time of forgiveness, even for those who have done unspeakable things to those whom they love. Is there such a thing as the unforgivable? I fear if there is, I have at the very least come closest to it. Unforgivably stupid, that’s certain. 

And now I’m standing looking at an empty cupboard. No vaults. No secret files, no evidence to destroy. That’s not entirely accurate though, is it? I mean, there isn’t any evidence but there is still something which must be destroyed. 

I’ve already made my choice. I made my decision almost instantly. He has to die. There is no other way. I will be the one to do it. I have made John carry too many of my burdens, he will not carry this one. This mistake is mine, and mine alone. 

I hear him speaking to John as they walk out onto the patio. Mycroft shouldn't be far behind. I surreptitiously check my watch. Late. Of all the times for him to be late. Nothing for it now. 

I join them on the patio and have to stand by helplessly, lost in a fugue as John bears the brunt of my folly. Yet again. I cannot keep doing this to him, I will not. John’s voice wavers. He is losing his control, it’s slipping and we can all see it. I tell him resignedly that there is no alternative. I loathe and despise everything about this entire fiasco. I am ending this now. 

I clarify one final time that there are no vaults, that everything exists inside that skull, that brain I intend to obliterate. I remind John one final time that I am not to be loved, I am a sociopath. And I pull the trigger. 

I drop to my knees. My coat swirls behind me with the gusts of the helicopter blades. Dimly I hear Mycroft’s voice but I barely register what he’s saying. I stay there, on my knees, rigid in the spotlights as the men surround us, weapons drawn. I try to school my face but I feel lost, untethered. And then I am pulled to my feet. I am dragged away. I hear John’s voice, or I think I do. I can’t tell anymore. All I can hear is the echo of the gunshot, the report reverberating in my ears. It all seems distant somehow. No matter. I will accept the consequences of my actions. Whatever the cost, I had told myself. Whatever it costs, keep him safe, keep him happy. I cannot fail him again. 

As I am bundled into an unmarked vehicle I close my eyes and focus. The gunshot is fading from my ears now and silence is encroaching. I allow it to swallow me whole and I try to calm my mind. My breathing and heart rate will follow if I can just get my thoughts under control. 

I quickly check my watch and see that only six minutes has passed. 

_Hours_

The blue lights of the emergency services vehicles flicker over everything. At one time they would have been a comfort of sorts to me. A sign that there was a puzzle to be solved, a mystery to untangle, a case to keep my brain from leaking out of my ears as it liquified in my skull from boredom. 

This should’ve been anything but boring. A high stakes game with all to play for. There was a time when I would relish the opportunity. This particular game has long since lost its appeal. 

I felt its familiar pull when I took the call. Mycroft’s smooth tones informing me that the plan had been put into motion. The plan he had devised to prevent me from returning to an assignment I would be unable to complete. I do so hate to leave things unfinished. But we didn’t know then what we know now. And now it’s too late.

I blink and peer at the gravel beneath my feet. I’m still wearing the clothes and shoes I had on when I boarded the plane. Seems ridiculous so that so much can have happened since then. 

First the message – Mycroft’s doing. Then the reaction – Mary. Then – this. This mess. 

Lestrade comes over to me and says something, but I’m not listening. I’m looking at John. John is a few feet away, staring unseeing into the distance. The blues of the vehicle lights and the red of the blood on his face mingle into a ghastly pattern, a tableau of horror I know was intended just for me. In death there is so seldom the peace many might wish for. So I have found. Cruelty is in its nature. 

I feel a hand on my shoulder and I give no reaction. A sigh, a shrug, a promise to check in with me later. A gentle nudge, a push towards John, a murmur that he needs me now, more than ever. I blink. Lestrade is wrong. He doesn’t need me now. I doubt he ever will again, not after this. 

It isn’t my fault, I know that intellectually. This is not my fault. And yet my mind cannot seem to help but trace everything back to my most fatal error. My grossest miscalculation. John always pays for my mistakes. 

He told me once that he couldn’t go back. He said it so quietly that I almost missed it, lost in the feel of his hands on my skin as he changed the dressing on my chest. It was the closest we’d come to speaking about anything more than the weather or my health or tea or any number of hideously mundane subjects. I don’t love her anymore, he’d said. I’m not going back. I knew he would, in the end. He is too good a man to not to. He said he didn’t love her anymore, but he could not punish a child. 

I stand unsteadily, shrug off the stupid blanket from my shoulders and wave away Lestrade’s proffered arm. I am a bit not good at this, I know. I walk over to John and sit beside him.

He turns his head slightly but doesn’t acknowledge me. His eyes are fixed in the middle distance and his hands are clenched at his sides. I tell him I am sorry. It feels like an empty platitude, it doesn’t matter that it’s true. He says he needs time. I nod. 

We sit together in silence after that. It’s only when I hear distant chimes marking the time that I realise it is six hours into my birthday. 

_Days_

The smoke curls up into the faded orange light of the streetlamps. Giving away my position, I think dimly, should really know better. Should really know better than to be standing here in the first place. But then, I never was one to do what's best. Even when I try to do what's best, I fail miserably. That's how I lost John. How I keep losing John. 

I sigh at the self-pitying turn my thoughts are taking, stub out my cigarette and light a fresh one. I'm mostly sheltered from the rain and my coat keeps me warm enough. I don't really need the cigarettes but at the same time I do. Crutch; not the aluminium kind. I can smell the fallen leaves starting to rot beneath my feet, the fresh, clean scent of autumnal rainfall, and him. He's not here of course, he's in the house, but funny thing, olfactory memory. I can also see his silhouette through the window, he really should close the curtains. He's drinking again, I note glumly. Every night since it happened he drinks; not enough, too much. Every night since it happened I stand in the garden and watch the house.

The lights go out in the window and I see John in my mind's eye, curling himself up in a chair or on the sofa. He's a soldier, he can fall asleep anywhere. Often has. Fell asleep on me once, on a train home. Years ago now, but I can still feel his weight against me, hair tickling my neck as he breathed softly into my shoulder. I remember wondering then what the warmth in my chest could possibly mean, resolving to ignore the implications. I smile at the memory, then reality crashes back in. Ruined. 

I look at the now dark house. I know I shouldn't be here. I know he knows I'm here. He knows I know he knows I'm here. 

Christ. Too circular, too tired. Anyway, makes no difference. I didn't expect him to come straight back to me (my open arms, always open for you John), except the very small part of me which did. He didn't, that's why I'm standing in the garden watching the house. It would be foolish even for me to think that everything could go immediately back to how it was. I curse my naivety for ever thinking that everything could somehow be the same as it had been. I curse myself harshly back to the moment I knew I had no choice but to go up onto that damned roof. Nothing is ever new. Everything is broken. 

John, my John, is broken. I broke him. She broke him. I'm not sure which of us was worse. My actions, however stupid and reckless, were solely designed to ensure his happiness. Hers, her own. At least in that regard I think I won out. 

I remember saying once that the chemistry of love is very simple and very destructive. Hope, however; hope is immensely more so. Hope is infinite, infiltrating the small spaces between one’s ribs and eventually filling one’s entire chest cavity. Hope is visceral, an irrepressible, immortal optimism that burrows its way into one’s heart where it has no place ever being. Hope keeps one returning night after night, coming back to a life of which one was never meant to be part. Hope is all I have left. 

I stub out my cigarette, wrap my coat more tightly around me and step out onto the street. Headed for home. Hollow word that, now. Home. 

It's been six days since Mary died.

_Weeks_

I pluck listlessly at my violin and ignore Mrs Hudson’s constant fussing. She sees far too much, that woman. She knows I am having nightmares and have been forcing myself past my limits until I slump over at the kitchen table. She’s recommended many things to help, all of which I know are pointless and won’t work. There is only one way to soothe my mind and I do not wish to invite that particular demon round for an extended visit. 

I am aware that one of the main reasons for my refusal is that I don’t want to disappoint John. Not that he would notice if I did relapse at the moment, but the thought of him somehow finding out at an undetermined point in the future keeps me from reaching for the little box beneath the floorboards in my bedroom. The box with its smooth wood surface and velvet interior, offering blissful oblivion. Tempting. Very tempting. 

Especially given the abrasive presence of my brother in John’s chair. I’d moved it back down again, the point had been made and I hated to see the space empty almost as much as I hated to see the chair itself empty. It’s overly full of overly solicitous older brother now. 

Mycroft watches me silently. Mrs Hudson brings him tea and he thanks her. She leaves. I see all of this and none of it. I continue plucking at the strings, not producing any melody as such, merely taking some measure of comfort in the action alone. 

Mycroft thinks I am depressed. He’s probably right, the git. I try to care but find it too boring and too difficult, so I give up. Mycroft sighs but for once there’s no accompanying eyeroll. I come back to myself just enough to glare at him. I know he is monitoring my actions, my visits to John’s house. He thinks I am being wilfully irrational. He’s probably right, the git. But I allow myself the indulgence, for now. I am grieving for a grieving best friend, I tell myself. No matter what transpired, John lost a wife he no longer truly loved and a child that was never his. Even I can recognise that kind of emotional trauma leaves its unseen mark. 

This is precisely why Mycroft avoids all feelings. Emotions are so unseemly, messy and unpredictable. He is lonely. I know what lonely is. I know it when I see it. I tried to tell him once. Goldfish. He raises his eyebrows at me. Apparently I said that word out loud. 

I shrug and go back to my violin. His phone trills in his pocket and he retrieves it, not looking at me. I watch him as he reads whatever message he received and then without another word he stands, hooks his umbrella over his arm and turns to leave. 

Goldfish, he says. Then he is gone. 

I frown. He could have been mocking me, most likely was, but there was something in his tone that was at odds with the usual manner of our exchanges. He almost sounded like he had at Christmas. I push the thought aside; I don’t want to waste my time on Mycroft’s motives. The games he plays were never fun for me. 

I go back to my violin. I’m thinking about raising it when I hear it. Footsteps on the stairs. Then John, in the doorway, duffel bag in one hand, unspoken question in his eyes. 

I nod and he nods in return. Then he smiles, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him smile in six weeks.

_Months_

Normal is a relative term. I, for instance, find it perfectly normal to tuck one’s feet under one’s flatmate’s thighs when watching an inane film of an evening. John finds this perfectly normal also, in so much as he has never protested this behaviour since I started doing it. 

It is a perfectly normal Sunday evening and we are watching something I have already deleted the title of on telly. John is mildly absorbed in the so-called action on screen and is chuckling at my ongoing, disgruntled commentary. The film is wildly historically inaccurate and the plot is simply ludicrous. John laughs as I yell. I gesture expansively in my indignation and he merely laughs harder. He shoots me a pointed look before doubling over in a fit of giggles at my expression. I refuse to admit I am, as they say, hamming it up a little for his benefit. I stand by my original assessment - the premise is utterly ridiculous. 

I quiet and John turns his attention back to the film, still grinning. It feels a little fragile, this peace we have built here in such a short time. We were both uneasy at first; when John moved back in we often tripped over one another in our haste to stay out of each other’s way. Gradually we fell back into our old routines and it began to seem normal again. Our version, at least. 

John comes with me on cases again now. I don’t take anything with children and Lestrade doesn’t ask me to. I still have nightmares. So does John. When either of us wakes in a cold sweat we go to the other. I did it first, climbing in beside John just to feel his chest moving in and out with his breaths. It calmed my mind enough for sleep to find me again. He did the same the next night. Since then we’ve shared a bed 57 times. I sleep best with John. 

I am thinking about this when I notice that John’s hand has dropped to my ankle and he’s rubbing it absently as he watches the film. I try not to focus on it too much in case he stops. I don’t want him to stop. Ever. If it were up to me he would always touch me like this, casually, calmly, as if it were completely normal. Which it is. I think. 

I realise I am staring at his hand on my ankle. The telly switches off. I look up in surprise. John is watching me. His eyes are intense with something I can’t place and I bite my lip nervously. His gaze flicks to my mouth, then back to my eyes, then away. Then back again. 

I am trembling a little now. His hand is also still on my ankle and I can’t tear my eyes away from his. He blinks once, twice, and seems to come to a decision. He lifts his hand from my leg and reaches out towards me. I unconsciously lean forward to meet his touch and when his palm reaches my face I breathe out shakily and close my eyes. 

He strokes my cheek with such tenderness and I hear him chuckle softly, wetly. I don’t dare open my eyes for fear that this is all an illusion. He shifts and I feel him come closer. The first brush of his lips to mine is tentative and fleeting. 

Alright? He asks. I nod. He kisses me again. I hope he never stops. Six months is a long time to wait, and yet no time at all.


	2. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a request for an epilogue and this story wouldn't leave me alone so here it is. Hope you like.

_Years_

I sit in the open window, idly blowing smoke up into the night sky. John will be angry with me for the cigarettes but I need them, tonight of all nights. He's angry with me anyway so might as well do something, anything to make it stop. 

We argued earlier tonight. I remember every word, spoken and unspoken, that passed between us. It's my fault, probably. Usually is. He was trying to help, I think, but I was upset and I lashed out. I haven't done that in a while. Not sure why I did it this time, not even sure why I was really upset. He understands these things so much better than me. These tangled thoughts. Sometimes I wonder.

But no, I know I am all the better for allowing myself to love. And I do. So wholly that I often fear I will consume everything and leave nothing behind but an empty shell. It drives me both into John's arms and to reject them coldly, as I did tonight. 

That was a mistake, I realise it now. He shouldn't have pushed me but I shouldn't have pushed back. When will I stop getting it wrong? I cannot afford to keep messing things up like this; John assures me that it happens in all relationships and part of being successful at it is recognising when you are in the wrong and apologising, compromising for each other. I try but I still fumble and it's infuriating. 

I sigh and blow another mist of smoke up, up and away. My hand drops to my side and meets another. I close my eyes. John takes away the half-finished cigarette and extinguishes it on the window ledge. His fingers wind into my hair and stroke gently. He cradles my skull and with his other hand he reaches over me and takes my hand. Cold, I've been sitting here a while. 

He tugs lightly and I go. I fall into him, his embrace sure and steady. He always is. He says nothing and I am glad of it. There is nothing I want to hear right now. He pulls me away from the window and back to bed, tucking my limbs under the covers, always touching me, always silent. He wraps himself around me and holds me close to his warmth. 

Oh John. How do you do it? I wish I knew so that I could do it too, for you. 

He kisses my hair softly, then my closed eyes, my cheeks, my jaw, my neck. His hands on my sides, his arms under and around me, his legs entwined with mine. I want, no, I need him, to take me apart, slowly, then put me back together. Sweetly, with such care, he does.

I make soft noises and he shushes me, breathing his love into my skin as he kisses and touches and strokes. I shake and tremble in his arms and he murmurs in my ear, his voice soothing the jagged peaks and broken shattered edges in my mind. 

Oh John. You, always you. Only you. More, I always need more. Please, John. I need to know we have more, there is more to come, there is more time for us. And he knows, he gives as he takes, every piece of me is his. The wave crests with his caresses and I let it all wash over me. As it recedes he is still murmuring, his words as warm as his embrace. 

My face is wet and suddenly I am sobbing silently in his arms. He rolls me over and I bury my face in his neck. He strokes my hair and says nothing. His touch tells me all. I don't say it but he knows. I will say it tomorrow, I promise myself. Eventually I subside and we settle, wrapped around one another. This is how I wish to spend the rest of my days, exactly like this. Seven years is not enough yet. There is nowhere else for me, here is where I belong. 

As I fall asleep I kiss him, to tell him how much I am thankful for all the time we will have together.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Prayers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5293133) by [Jberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jberry/pseuds/Jberry)




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